Television signal transmission to the public at large has become sophisticated, widespread and pervasive. Television transmission today is not limited to the transmission of a limited number of signals or channels to the population, such as by wireless antenna systems. Today, not only are there numerous channels of high quality entertainment, but interactive communication between the end user and the signal source, not only for selecting entertainment on demand but also for the purchase of various pay per view products and the like. The source of the signal may be a cable television system, a high speed telephone cable such as DSL, satellite or other suitable source. In order to enable these systems to work effectively, there must be a set-top box (sometimes referred to as a “STB”) connected between the signal source and the television set, typically at the location of the television set.
These boxes are often rented or otherwise paid for by the consumer. Particularly where rented, the boxes may be retrieved by the source company when a subscriber's service is terminated for any of various reasons. These boxes, along with other boxes that may be retrieved from the field as allegedly defective need to be tested and determined as to their operability. With almost every household in the United States having one or more televisions and set-top boxes today, this generates a large volume of required testing of set-top boxes. This testing is a time consuming and expensive operation, but must be done to provide the customer with a set-top box of known operability, particularly in view of the fact that the set-top boxes are too expensive to be discarded.